


Crayons to Perfume

by fictorium



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, General Danvers Week, Teacher AU, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 15:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6962830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For General Danvers week - Teacher AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crayons to Perfume

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I would miss out on this week, but I couldn't sleep last night and finished what I started. Then I didn't have time to post, but there's a gorgeous hipster cafe here in Bratislava just beseeching me to use the wifi. So: ta-da. A little fic for y'all.

Alex takes the job as a form of punishment, her own messed up version of community service for the crimes she hasn’t been caught or punished for. Kara’s graduating in the summer, already full of ideas about joining Alex in National City, and how she’ll change the world here. There’s no way Alex can let Kara - full of good intentions, no doubt - report back to Eliza that Alex has quit her job at the lab and hasn’t done much of anything but drink since she was last home at Thanksgiving.

As places to work go, National City Community College isn’t all that bad. The campus is small but modern, adaptable space everywhere that lets a bunch of different disciplines share the rooms with the passing waves and vague nods of paths not yet crossed and colleagues in name only. Alex likes the anonymity, likes the cheap on-campus bar, and it turns out there’s a surprisingly constant flow of students looking to learn Biology, not least because medical research is a big employer out here, and plenty of people seem to have been told that these courses are a golden ticket to a job somewhere like Lord Technologies, or at least the next four-year course that will get them something entry-level.

Her boss, Hank, doesn’t seem to like much of anyone but he’s the Dean of Sciences. Alex can tell the plural annoys him when ‘science’ would suffice, but it’s not something they’ve ever talked about since her brief interview. These days she only sees him when collecting her mail from the Faculty Office, and for meetings like today about the new teaching roster.

“I’ll break it to you gently, Danvers,” he begins. “The real demand for classes is in the evening. People don’t want to give up their jobs to come here, they want to use their free time to get ahead in those jobs. That means-”

“I can teach evenings,” Alex agrees. Her hangovers are already abating at the thought of sleeping in each morning and still getting paid. Even if she’s there until ten or eleven at night, bars stay open way later than that. “I don’t mind.”

Dr. Henshaw is momentarily taken aback by her quick offer. That’s a first. He crosses his arms over his chest, creasing the white shirt and knocking his black tie askew. There’s never been any mention of a dress code, but Alex feels underdressed in her cargo pants and polo shirt. Maybe if she’s going straight from teaching class to the bar she’ll dig out some skirts or something. Maybe she won’t bother.

“That’s very good of you,” Hank agrees after a moment. “The new schedules will be in your email by tomorrow. Have a good term.”

“Thanks,” Alex mutters, already on her way out. Kara’s blowing up her phone with texts about a job at CatCo and does Alex want to Skype practice for interviews. Alex clears the notifications and jams her phone back in her bag. Tomorrow. Kara won’t mind waiting another day.

***

Alex is finally returning Kara’s texts and calls while setting up for class three days later, the 6 o’clock start meaning that at least the sun hasn’t set yet. Interrupting the flow of “mmhmm” and “sure”s that make up a call with her sister these days, there’s a knock on the open door of Multi-space 212.

“Dr. Danvers?” 

“Gotta go, Kara,” Alex is relieved to end the call. She turns to see a tall, slender woman in the doorway. There’s a sharpness about her that puts Alex on guard. “It’s Ms. Danvers, actually. But most students call me Alex. You looking for Bio 115?”

“Human Biology, yes,” the woman replies, and the distinction gives Alex pause.

“Well, you’re early. But I guess that means you get your pick of the good seats. Don’t bother with the back though, I can still see you sleeping up there.”

“Why would someone sleep during a course they’re paying to take?” The woman is still in the doorway, surveying the simple class layout like there might be concealed explosives strapped to the cheap plastic seats passed off as a design choice. 

“If I could answer that, I don’t think I’d be teaching night school,” Alex replies, approaching the woman with what she hopes is the welcoming attitude they spent a whole weekend pretending to master. “Why don’t you tell me your name, and you can hit the sign-in sheet while you’re at it.”

“Astra,” she replies, looking at the folder clutched to her chest before moving one of the hands holding it to offer a handshake. When their hands meet, Alex has the momentary sensation of her bones grinding at the joints, but the pressure eases almost as quickly as she feels it. “I know, it is not a common name.”

“No judging here,” Alex responds, and it’s more conversation than she’s made with a student all year, outside of ill-advised yelling in a busy bar anyway. “That name rings a bell, though.”

She’s gotten good at not performing certain mental equations. No two plus two to equal four if she can avoid it, not when a glimmer of unreasonable strength and the whisper of Kara’s voice in some long-forgotten conversation are nagging at her. No, Alex resolutely refuses to think about anything beyond how to teach this woman how to pass the course and get away from the rippling edges of whatever is pricking at Alex’s consciousness. Her and whoever else bothers to show up between now and six.

The awkward silence is shattered by Susan Vasquez, who teaches something to do with Accounts or Marketing. “Hey Danvers, we’re neighbors. You starting early?”

“I’m hoping I get more than one,” Alex fires back. “Otherwise they’ll boot me from the program, and my landlord won’t like that.”

Other students trickle in, and Alex pretends not to notice that Astra picks the desk smack bang in the center of the rows.

***

For a first class it’s uneventful, but afterwards Alex takes her time shuffling some pieces of paper as though she’s considering what to pack up. Two nights a week for a few months isn’t an arduous class load for any of them, but Astra is the only one who holds back, watching everyone else leave from under heavy lashes. 

“Thank you,” she says as she finally passes Alex’s lectern at the front of the room, like a Midwestern tourist making sure the bus driver really heard her. “I think we’ll have a productive term.”

The way she says it, it’s more like a threat than a suggestion. Alex doesn’t know why that sends a thrill down her spine.

***

They’re five sessions in and the typical nervous energy has started to settle into something between a coma ward down front and a frat house out back. Alex is stern enough to keep order, her fuck-you boots and the occasional extra flex of a bicep when pointing at the board is usually warning enough that no one should step all the way over the line. She feels bad for the exhausted people riding desks after a workday that probably started before dawn, but even giving it her very best some of this introductory stuff is unavoidably dull.

If there’s a bright spot, then naturally it turns out to be Astra. She’s been more than prepared any time Alex has called on her, and she asks questions that show a level of thought that isn’t standard for this gig. She takes meticulous notes, secretive of them in a way that makes Alex want to linger at Astra’s shoulder while parading up and down the rows to lecture.

She tells herself she’s not disappointed that Astra hasn’t lingered after any other class.

***

The Commune might be a shitty name for a bar, but it’s established enough to have unspoken rules. Faculty won’t give up cheap alcohol without a fight, so the far side of the bar is a designated teacher zone, mostly booths where Creative Writing and Engineering can duke it out about who gets treated worst by the Dean, or some fairly complex betting pools run about the lowest GPA and the best excuse for missing a class test.

Alex sticks to the barstools. Like that one girl on every season of the Bachelor, she isn’t here to make friends. She nurses a double bourbon and half-watches the Comets strike out in the eighth, and when someone takes the stool right next to her, she assumes it’s Vasquez. They’ve had some meaningful eye contact over the past few months, and Alex knows a come-on when she hears it. She just wants this one thing to not get messed up when she’s barely getting started.

“Can I buy you a drink?” The voice is familiar, and not Vasquez.

“Got one,” Alex says, but then she does the stupid thing of draining her glass in one swallow. “But people will say you’re trying to buy an A, Ms…”

“You know my name is Astra,” she sighs, waving down the barman as Alex finally turns to look at her. “And I don’t need to buy my grades, Ms. Danvers.”

“Why do you say my name like that?” Alex tilts her glass at the barman for the same again, and he picks up the Maker’s Mark. “Like it’s some private joke I don’t know about yet.”

“That’s two drinks down the road,” Astra explains, which of course doesn’t explain anything at all. “Those leather seats over there look much more comfortable.”

So what the hell. Alex can’t be expected to break her streak of crappy decisions all in one year. She grabs her bag from where it languishes at her feet, and follows her most interesting new student across the bar. It doesn’t occur to her that a semi-enclosed space is also more dangerous, that the shadows can conceal much more than a lingering glance or brush of hands. That tingling in her spine is only increasing, but Alex follows anyway. 

***

“This is two drinks later,” Alex points out, fairly sure that she isn’t slurring. Yet. “What’s your deal, Assss-tra?” Okay, no need for that, but the cheap shots are usually the most fun ones.

“Your father,” Astra blindsides so effectively it might as well have been a punch to the temple. “Jeremiah Danvers.”

“I have to go,” Alex blurts, trying to shove Astra out of the way. Why did she slide in first and let Astra sit on the same side? Alex pushes again, and she knows there’s a burst of adrenaline behind it, but Astra might as well be Old Abe, sitting on his big marble chair. “Shit.”

“You know what I am,” Astra reveals herself in five words. “And your father is the only human expert on it. I need to speak with him.”

“Well I hope they made ouija boards on your planet, lady,” Alex shoves again, and Astra at least has the courtesy to act like she felt this one. “Because that’s the only way anyone’s getting a consult from my Dad.”

Astra’s face falls, a crumpling so obvious and sudden that even Alex gasps to see it. She recognizes that despair, has seen it in the half-light of a shared bedroom too many times not to know it here. It’s a partial resemblance, the distillation of one half of an alien’s DNA, but Alex is already sure.

“Is it my father you really wanted?” She asks, voice a ragged whisper now and the bourbon isn’t even touching her. Her mind is sharp in a way it hasn’t been since undergrad, back when she thought she was going to change the world. “Or did you want to know who else had found their way to him?”

“I know he knows him,” Astra replies, casting her eyes around the bar for eavesdroppers although anyone too close she could obviously hear lurking. “I wondered if the man from Metropolis was his only visitor. It’s what your people call a ‘long shot’, I believe. But I’ve had longer shots than most so far. I’m not ready to give up on one more.”

“She looks like you,” Alex offers the words like a fragile gift, a piece of glass that could shatter with a breath. “I don’t know why you changed your name, but I don’t think you realize how happy this will make your daughter.”

“Not my daughter,” Astra corrects, but the words are coming out strained, as though a hand as strong as her own is wrapped around her throat. “My niece. Does this mean Kara lives?”

“She does,” Alex confirms. She doesn’t dare speculate on why Kara never once mentioned that her mother had an identical sister. “I can’t take you to her, I-”

“It’s enough that she lives,” Astra leans back against the leather of the booth’s seat, eyes closed in something close to bliss. “Maybe, if I can find the words…”

“I can give her a message,” Alex confirms. “But right now? I have to go.”

“I’ll see you in class Thursday,” Astra promises, as Alex clambers over her to exit the booth. “I’ll correct you on some of those chromosomes too.”

***

Astra disappears from class the night before she’s set to finally meet Kara. Alex supposes she shouldn’t have expected anything less. One way or another, she’s just an adjunct to her superpowered sister, and there’s a nagging feeling in Alex’s gut that with college out of the way and a big city at her feet, Kara is more likely than not to follow her big cousin into the very dangerous limelight. There’s not a whole lot a biology teacher can do to protect Kara if she does.

These past three weeks of playing messenger, of relaying a hundred little tests for Astra to pass (with flying colors, just like her Biology homework. Which honestly, must feel like finger-painting compared to the little Alex knows of Kryptonian science.) These weeks have been a dam against which Alex has marshaled her last hopes. That Kara would look to her aunt and see the merits of hiding, of keeping the spectacular under wraps for another decade or more. That Kara would think twice before consigning Alex to the bench yet again, not even first-string in her own life.

Of course, Kara calls the very moment she leaves Astra’s company. She doesn’t consider super-hearing or what even the strangers in the street might overhear. She’s happy, and even without seeing her Alex knows that this time Kara’s dazzling smile reaches all the way to her eyes. She doesn’t have to dig deep for a silver lining or find solace in the new and ordinary tonight. Kara got a piece of her home back, got a family that shares the biology Alex claims to believe in like a God. How is Alex ever going to compare to that?

She isn’t expecting Astra to be waiting in the stairwell of her building. She lacks Kara’s bubbly personality, but her happiness is a tangible thing. A cloak draped over her, hiding the once obvious cracks and bruises that she hid behind folders and darting glances. Astra is waiting for Alex, full of joy, and for some reason she’s looking at Alex like she has something to do with that.

“What you gave me…” Astra begins, as Alex freezes with her key in the lock. “Alexandra, you are the very greatest that humanity has to offer.”

Alex snorts. She never could take a compliment.

“Don’t dismiss me.” There’s that familiar snap. Alex has to choose in that moment, opening the door. In or out, welcome or farewell. Astra is not her problem, and Kara shouldn’t really be either. “I am trying to thank you,” Astra persists, and that makes the decision for both of them.

“Do you want a drink?” Alex can at least play hostess, flipping on the lights and smiling faintly at the home she’s made for herself. It’s not much, but it’s somewhere to call her own. At least as long as she’s making the rent. “I know the hard stuff doesn’t work on you but you can pretend to like the taste, I guess.”

“Please,” Astra takes Alex by the hand as their paths cross in the tiny hallway. “Stop running. Kara told me so much, but she doesn’t know… She’ll never be the second daughter, because she is Alura as surely as you are me.”

“If you say so,” Alex replies with a shrug. Astra’s touch is so gentle it’s impossible to believe that same hand could level a skyscraper with a swat. “I’m not really looking for a therapist though, alien credentials or not.”

“You did a wonderful thing,” Astra persists. “And you have got to start taking credit for the good that you do.”

“I don’t do a whole lot of good.” Alex could pull away, the grip is loose but Astra has her backed against the off-white wall and it’s hard to think of anywhere else to be. “You must be mistaking me for one of your super relatives.”

“Finding Kara was my mission,” Astra admits. “And my greatest joy. But in doing so I found you, Alexandra-”

“Alex,” she corrects. “And what did you find? Some adequate instruction about cellular structure?”

“The first human worthy of my attention.” And oh, what attention it is. Tonight Alex understands the specimens under her microscope, finally remembers what it’s like to be truly seen. There’s no sister to cast a shadow, no parent to look away just a moment too soon. Astra isn’t the professor who found Alex’s doctoral research lacking, she isn’t a police officer with too much patience, letting Alex slink back into her life after one night in the cells.

Astra is looking at Alex and she sees everything. She sees it, understands it despite a handful of real conversations, and beyond all of that she seems to want it. Alex doesn’t know how to be wanted beyond a warm body at the end of a blurry night; nobody ever taught her how to be chosen. How fitting that her student, but not a student at all, should be the one doing the teaching.

She teaches with a kiss, tentative in the first contact. They both relax when no literal sparks fly, when so ceilings fall, and the second kiss is Alex’s decision, the clearest one she’s made in half a lifetime. She grabs Astra by the collar of the black dress she wears like an uniform, the cotton crisp enough to wound. Then Alex has the upper hand, and Astra has her back against that wall, and somewhere in all of that they forget how to stop kissing.

***

It’s three in the morning when they finally collapse on separate sides of Alex’s bed. The sheets are halfway to the floor, but overheated skin doesn’t need the warmth of them just yet.

“Is this weird?” Alex asks. “You’re Kara’s aunt, so what does that make you to me?”

“If you give it time,” Astra replies, turning on her side to drag one finger down Alex’s cheek. “I think it might make me everything to you.”

“That’s pretty cheesy for an alien,” Alex scoffs, but there’s a pleasant twist in her stomach at the words all the same. “I suppose I don’t mind if you want to try, though.”

“Will I get a letter grade?”

“I don’t sleep with students.” Alex will insist in the daylight that Astra drops out of the course. A clean-ish slate is better than nothing. “Do you want to get me fired?”

“No,” Astra admits after a long pause. “Although I have one serious question.”

“What?”

“Is this what they mean by ‘hot for teacher’?”

Alex groans, pulling the pillow over her head. One way or another, these Kryptonians will be the death of her. But when Astra pulls the pillow away - a cloud of feathers the result of her enthusiasm - Alex lets the laugh sweep through her like sunshine. She thinks maybe this is how it feels for them, and it puts some final, lingering jealousy to sleep at last. 

She feels lighter when she wraps the white streak in Astra’s hair around her fingers. If she didn’t know better, Alex might almost think she could fly.


End file.
